How to Use dismaying in a Sentence

dismaying

adjective
  • The keenness of my letdown was dismaying.
    — Literary Hub, 13 Feb. 2026
  • Biden’s senescence wasn’t the only dismaying thing about the debate.
    — The Editors, National Review, 28 June 2024
  • But the drum sound wasn’t nearly as dismaying as the studio’s piano, which kept slipping out of tune.
    — Peter Ames Carlin, Rolling Stone, 13 Aug. 2025
  • While the numbers reveal a dismaying picture, the concern is much more layered than meets the eye.
    — Song Toh, Quartz, 1 Nov. 2021
  • The record of American failure in the Middle East over the last two decades is long and dismaying.
    — Steven A. Cook, Foreign Affairs, 13 Oct. 2020
  • Even more dismaying for the Big Guy is the sudden awakening of his only child, Meghan.
    — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2022
  • Americans, and a dismaying number of politicians, keep crying for a crackdown on crimes that aren’t happening.
    — F.k. Plous, Chicago Tribune, 8 Jan. 2025
  • There was a dismaying incident when a barefoot African pursued the royal car while waving what appeared to be a piece of paper.
    — Moira Hodgson, WSJ, 25 Mar. 2021
  • On top of this dismaying thought comes the realization that the AI is available 24x7 and at a low cost or perhaps even free.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025
  • To an almost dismaying degree, many readers saw in Jude’s abject powerlessness a reflection of their own lives.
    — The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2022
  • Her decision and its dismaying result unspool with both inevitability and surprise.
    — Erin Douglass, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Some recent comments from longtime Voicers have been especially dismaying.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 4 June 2026
  • Seeing such a disarming man with infamous smarm and charm lie and twist under questioning was dazzling and dismaying, even before the final hot mic moment.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 19 Apr. 2024
  • This resonant core subject makes Wright’s myriad failures of style all the more dismaying—because they’re rooted in his concept of the main character.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 25 Feb. 2022
  • And in the worst cases — a scenario that plays out with dismaying regularity — the executive who championed the project has moved on to another job entirely.
    — George Heller, HollywoodReporter, 6 May 2026
  • This recent period may be the most dismaying, and audience-repellant, of Oscar history.
    — Armond White, National Review, 27 Jan. 2023
  • That such paralyzing division has gridlocked the Senate is a dismaying turnabout for those who have long watched Oregon politics.
    — Mike Baker, New York Times, 4 June 2023
  • This impersonality is all the more dismaying because the dramatic crux of the film is exceptionally effective.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 1 Feb. 2024
  • The movie’s essential hollowness is all the more dismaying for its absurdly glorious moments of pop-iconic grandeur—most of them sharpened by Gaga’s screen-commanding gestures.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
  • More dismaying was the lack of pressure on Allen from a defensive front that lost Von Miller to the Bills, along with an apparently cautious secondary that didn't make enough big plays.
    — Greg Beacham, ajc, 9 Sep. 2022
  • And developers who take on the spatial complexities of working with old architecture face a dismaying array of bureaucratic and financial challenges.
    — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 27 June 2025
  • Indeed, the legendary King’s audible and visible decline in the final years of his touring career was a dismaying experience that tarnished his stellar reputation.
    — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 Aug. 2023
  • For the Congolese government, the ineffective Western responses follow a dismaying pattern.
    — Michela Wrong, Foreign Affairs, 3 Mar. 2025
  • That was tested on the first day of field trials, when a bad capacitor—easily fixed—in one home’s HVAC triggered a surge of current that shut the entire system down with a loud and dismaying relay clunk.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 21 Nov. 2019
  • The late President’s priorities were remarkably prescient, and his personal qualities offered a dismaying contrast to so much of the present state of American politics.
    — Erin Neil, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2024
  • These Somebodies are seated in the audience and called onto the stage after God, unhappy with his creation, asks Death to retrieve humanity for an accounting of its dismaying conduct.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 28 Sep. 2022
  • Eventually, the exposure leads to problems for Currier and his experiments; and from there, the rest of the story unfolds with an inevitability that is either pleasing or dismaying, depending on your feelings about plot.
    — Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine, 17 Aug. 2021
  • What’s dismaying is this was yet another opportunity for the Bears to close out a game — in this instance, Williams could have ended things with a 99-yard touchdown drive — and be celebrating a massive performance by the rookie.
    — Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune, 29 Nov. 2024
  • With a six-game deficit in the American League wild card hunt entering play on Monday, the Angels may be only a few series away from repeating their dismaying playbook from 2023.
    — Jackson Roberts, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Democratic leaders actually were troubled by Mamdani’s rise (although their preference for a disgraced former governor was equally dismaying), but Democratic voters handed Mamdani a solid victory despite his radical positions.
    — Steven Greenhut, Oc Register, 28 Nov. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dismaying.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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